0 4
a d u l a t e
"This isn't working out."
I glanced up from the pile of plates I was busy balancing. "No, really?" I deadpanned.
He was pushing the button on the cash register. The change compartment popped out, and he pushed it back with a click. He did it again. Open. Close. Click. I watched him do that about five more times before nudging him away from the cash register altogether.
"Tell me, Addison," I said lightly, mirroring his posture by leaning against the counter and folding my arms. "Are you ill?"
He looked at me in surprise. "No. Why?"
"Physically disabled, perhaps?"
"What are you - "
"Allergic to dirty dishes?"
"Of course not - "
"Then why aren't you working?" I asked, the annoyance I felt surfacing in my voice. "The least you could do is help out. Mikel employed you for a reason, he didn't employ you to stand there and look good."
One of his eyebrows quirked up in amusement. "You think I'm good-looking?"
It took a huge effort to refrain from rolling my eyes at him. "Step one of dealing with the aftermath of a breakup: keep yourself busy," I said, flatly, and held out a dishcloth to him. "Drown yourself in work, or studies, anything - as long as it's not alcohol. Table fifteen over there has just been vacated. Get to work."
"Fine," he snarled, practically snatching the dishcloth and trudging towards table fifteen.
I watched him stack the plates, his hair falling into his eyes as he bent over the table, the sleeves of his sweater pushed up to his elbows. A part of me couldn't help but feel sorry for him. It wasn't the fact that he'd been dumped - no, we've all been there, it was a pretty universal experience. It was the fact that he seemed so utterly broken over it.
And, for a moment there, I saw myself in him.
Before I knew it, I found myself heading up to him. "Here," I said softly, nudging him aside and helping him with the plates. "I apologise if I seem harsh. But sometimes, we've got to be cruel to be kind."
Joey was silent for a moment and when he spoke, his voice was several notches lower. "She said the same thing, you know. When we broke up."
"I'm sorry."
"Are you, really?" he asked, his tone somewhat mocking, and I now had a feeling he was accessing me, instead of the other way round. "You see, the thing is, Kira, I'm starting to think you don't. That's why you've got this indifferent, no-nonsense vibe, that whole 'get this bloody thing over and done with and stop wallowing in pity' attitude."
I bristled indignantly. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying - I don't think you really understand what I'm going through."
Frowning, I set the plates down and looked up at him. "I did say I was sorry."
"Out of pity, not empathy. Have you ever gone through a breakup so terrible your head hurt just thinking about it? Have you ever had the other kids at school think you deserved it, because you'd broken so many hearts that you deserved to have yours broken as well?"
"They actually said that?"
He glanced away. "Some of them did. They congratulated Fiona for dumping me. And then a couple laughed in my face about it. I was this close to beating them up, but Declan stopped me just in time."
I bit my lip and mulled over his words. "I'm sorry," I couldn't help but say, again.
The corners of his lips quirked up in a brief smirk, but it was a bitter, mocking sort of smile. "Again, pity, not empathy. So you've never had your heart broken, never had people laugh in your face about it. Lucky you."
"It's not like that," I tried to explain, but he headed back to the counter without so much as a glance over his shoulder. Normally fairly articulate, I now found myself at a complete loss of words. Instead, all I could do was to stand beside him.
"One more question," he said at last, and I looked at him. His eyes searched my face, he seemed intent on sifting out what few emotions I had left on display for the world to see. "Have you ever loved someone so much you thought your heart would explode?"
"No," I said, my voice carefully neutral. "I'm incapable of feeling this way about anyone."
"Really?"
I schooled my face into a carefully blank mask and walked away.
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It seemed like the conversation I had with Joey had worked, or at least made him reconsider, because he actually began to work over the next two hours. I manned the cash register and took orders, while he brought food to tables and completely charmed the hats off several teenage girls whose tables he served.
I could see why he had the potential to be a heartbreaker. That tousled mop of brown hair, his sinewy, athletic figure and an unusually boyish smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners - all these needed to be factored in when it came to his propensity and capability to first attract, and then break, hearts.
When lunch period was finally over and our shifts ended, I let Joey drag me to a nearby diner, which he claimed served amazing pasta. We both placed our orders and as we waited for the food to arrive, I grabbed a napkin and the pen from the holder, before pushing them across the table to him.
"First day I met you, you told me Fiona was perfect and, if my memory doesn't fail me, you told me that she was one in a million, ten times better than I'll ever be," I added, giving him a pointed look.
"I was drunk - " he began, apologetically, but I cut him off.
"Apology accepted. But it's plain to see that you've put her on a pedestal, and I need to show you just how wrong you are. Give me two lists: one listing her good qualities, and the other her flaws."
He stared at me, appalled. "Do I look like a seven-year old to you?"
"Do you want to get over Fiona, or not?"
That made him shut his mouth immediately. Casting one last uncertain glance in my direction, he grabbed the pen and drew a line down the middle of the napkin.
As I watched him scribble on the napkin, I belatedly realised how I hadn't asked him the most important question of all. "Why did Fiona break up with you?"
He froze. "That's private and personal information," he returned mildly, before beginning to write again.
"You cried in front of me," I scoffed, "I hardly think anything's 'private and personal' between us anymore."
"Are you always this demanding?"
"Are you always such a baby?" I countered, evenly. "Toughen up and tell me about the breakup. It's no big deal. I'm not going to laugh. I promise."
"I'd love to tell you, Kira," he sighed and glanced down, staring at the table with an intensity as if it thoroughly fascinated him. "It's just that she never told me why either. One day we were happy, and the next, she said we were through and she was done with me and that was that."
"I'm sorry."
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I don't need your pity, Kira." Barely a minute later, he was done, and he pushed the napkin across the table.
I took the napkin and studied it carefully, before realising why it had taken him nearly five-minutes to finish it. On it, he had written, in a rather lazy scrawl:
G O O D
Smart
Funny
Amazing
Sexy
Hot, really, really hot
B A D
There's only one of her
I looked at him in disgust. "Really? 'There's only one of her'? That's all you can think of?"
Joey shrugged. "I mean it. She was the best I ever had, and I fucked up. Simple as that."
It was then that I realised exactly how in love Joey was with Fiona. The breakup had torn him apart. And it was going to take more than just a simple, stupid breakup formula to get him through this.